Aug 26, 2021
I’ve been having all new experiences over here since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I checked off a couple of bucket list items and a few other items—San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, Yosemite National Park, Muir Woods National Monument, boudoir sessions to commemorate my current body, trying sushi, cutting my hair super short.
I no longer want to wait to do things anymore, but honestly, I’ve become more confident with my decisions the past couple of years as I made my way toward my 5th decade in life. I feel zero guilt about saying ‘no’ to people or things that don’t feed my soul. I’m not looking for permission from anyone anymore to do the things I want in life, or to go places, or to spend time with those I want to spend time with who bring me joy. Basically, I’m no longer waiting for tomorrow. What for? I want to live in the moment right now. Tomorrow is not promised.
After returning from my last shenanigans, it was time to get down to business.
My heart doppler and port implant were both scheduled for August 2nd, 2021. One of the chemotherapy drugs that I am taking is particularly hard on the heart, so they needed to check the health of my heart to get a baseline of the valves/ventricles/rhythm, I’m not a doctor but that’s my understanding. I thought looking at my heart beating was cool. Everything looked great so from here I went to get prepped for my port implant.
The next morning, August 3, 2021, with my port incision smarting like a motherf*! I would have my first infusion. Yep, they were accessing that sucker less than 24 hours after I had it put inside me.
In between the time I got back from my trips and getting prepped for chemo, I had to order a cold cap system to try to save my hair which is a whole other ordeal in and of itself. The chemotherapy drug I will be on has a slight risk of permanent hair loss, but also, it’s an attempt at holding on to some normalcy in your life as you go through treatment. I will talk more about that another time.
Well, I got hooked up, and the first cycle went well. I had no reactions and mild side effects afterward. I spent the day sleeping in the chair on and off for about 6 hours. The first infusion is always the longest as they are keeping an eye on you for reactions. I’m grateful it was not as bad or scary as I expected. The nurse numbed the skin over the port and then stuck the IV in to administer 4 different bags of cancer-killing drugs. Each bag takes about one hour to transfuse. I slept through most of it.
By the way, I want to mention that I had absolutely zero desire to get on the internet and research ANYTHING related to my disease, journey, chemo drugs, side effects whatever. I told a few people, people that need to be in the know because I needed to vent, needed help and needed to be cheered up and pushed. I didn’t want to hear anything negative. I could barely deal with the sadness, anger, and frustration I was living with much less anxiety brought on by reading other people’s terrible experiences with their journies. Every woman who goes through this lives their own unique experiences. Sure, we may have some of the same side effects, but the last thing I wanted or needed was to hear was negativity so absolutely NO research was done on my part. Some may think that is ignorant of me, but I chose to trust my doctors and have faith that I am going to be the anomaly that has little to no side effects. I’m really good at persevering through difficult situations and reaching goals once I set my mind to achieving them. I may cry, get pissed off, rant, and feel sorry for myself while I’m going through it, but that’s all part of the journey, isn’t it? We can’t be 100% positive ALL the time. There’s no such thing.
In fact, I was getting irate at people telling me all the time to just stay positive, because it was starting to make me feel bad that I was an ingrate or something. I was actually told on several occasions “You’re getting a boob job and tummy tuck!” Yea, with fat scars across my chest, no nipples, and the possibility of auto-immune responses to fake boobs in my body. Enter my niece, nurse Courtney to the rescue. Out of everyone I spoke to, she was the ONLY one who told me it was OK to feel my anger and express the negative emotions I was experiencing. I NEEDED to hear that from her. I needed it so badly. She even told me if I felt like breaking shit one day to go break it! It’s OK TO FEEL NEGATIVE. YES! I gotta get it out so I can get back to fighting not just for my body’s health, but for my mental well-being too. I am searching for my happiness again. I miss my happy. This is a marathon, not a sprint and like any other race I’ve run, I intend to cross the finish line strong.
